


Getting There

by dragonshost



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, Post-Tartaros Arc (Fairy Tail)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 09:59:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonshost/pseuds/dragonshost
Summary: It was slow going, but eventually they would get there.





	Getting There

Erza had spent a lot of time with Jellal over the year that Fairy Tail was disbanded; had spent a lot of time with his team, too.

It was time that they’d needed, she decided.  She and Jellal had never really spent all that much time together since their parting in childhood.  Even back then, she’d never really, truly known the boy.  There hadn’t been any time to.  One moment they were starting to connect in their shared cell, and the next… she was watching as Jellal obliterated both their original captors and their chance at freedom.

When they fought at the tower, she was given a clearer idea of who he was.  It wasn’t a pleasant picture.  The truths he gave her were painful, and lonely, and cruel.

And then there was nothing inside of him, when they met once more in front of a pillar of dark light.  He didn’t know who he was any more than Erza really did.

Seven years had then passed for him.

But not for her.

And Erza… Although it pained her to admit it, she was more or less the same person she was when she faced Oracion Seis, while years had passed for Jellal.  Erza was still essentially unchanged.  Jellal had undergone seven years of growth without her.

So while he seemed to have a fairly clear understanding of her, Erza’s understanding of him was vastly inaccurate.  There were so many things that she had assumed, when she first saw him again after her return.  Things that simply weren’t true, or which no longer applied.  His words didn’t fit with what she had known, so she had rejected them outright.

But now that she’d had the opportunity to learn who the Jellal of _now_ was… things felt different than before.  More solid, and real.  Something beyond their lingering attraction and Jellal’s search for redemption.  Beyond her own misconceptions and his changed self.

There was a lot more to him than she’d given him credit for, if she were being completely honest.

(She couldn’t say that she disliked what she found, though.)

It was almost disappointing when she had to leave and return to Fairy Tail, even if she _had_ missed her team terribly.

But she knew that she and Jellal still had time yet to figure this all out between them.

They had time.

And they were getting there.


End file.
